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Publishers Response On the measure of smart remarks

Our columnist, Adele Ferguson, draws a lot of reader comments. This time she is drawing one from the publisher.In this weeks column, to the right, she states the reason the U.S. and our president are so denigrated throughout the world is because the Ds [Democrats] and the mainstream media have heaped such scorn and abuse on Bush that it led to the inevitable conclusion abroad if he is so despised here, he doesnt deserve the respect of other nations.That is a truckload of bushwa. The reason Bush is denigrated throughout the world is that he ran on a ticket of family values and the constitution then proceeded to 1. draw a curtain of secrecy around government actions, 2. destroy Afghanistan (perhaps permanently) and the Taliban (for a few years), 3. not catch the primary perpetrator of 9-11, 4. move the country on a course of pre-emptive warfare as policy, 5. botch the conduct of that war putting our troops in harms way with bad management and execution, 6. smirk at the Geneva Conventions and other international treaties (welch on promises), 7. accept and refine a policy of torture, 8. put war prisoners incommunicado and in limbo for years, 9. ignore allies and act unilaterally, some say imperialistically, 10. spend us and generations into an unprecedented military debt, 11. fail our own citizens in national natural disasters, 12. fail on numerous occasions to effectively intervene in genocides by word or action, 13. demonstrate a clear failure of foresight and advanced planning.These 13 items and others are the reason President Bush is denigrated here and abroad. Respect doesnt come with a title, it is something you earn. This president has not earned it.

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